1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an identification (“ID”) registration method for a tire air pressure sensor, an ID registration system, tire air pressure monitoring system, a tire air pressure sensor and a smart control system.
2) Description of the Related Art
So far, as a tire air-pressure monitoring system, there has known a technique disclosed in Japanese patent No. 3212311.
This conventional tire air pressure monitoring system is designed such that an air pressure sensor is mounted on each of tires and an air pressure detection signal, together with a sensor identification (“ID”) (identification information, identification means), is transmitted from the air pressure sensor and then received by a tire pressure monitoring apparatus mounted on a vehicle body side so that, when there exists at least one tire unusual in air pressure, an indication appears on an indicator to issue an alarm.
In this system, the ID for each sensor is registered (stored in a state registered) in a memory of the tire pressure monitoring apparatus, and this ID is collated with the sensor ID included in the received data so that a decision is made as to whether or not the received detection signal is from an air pressure sensor of a tire of this (his/her own) vehicle.
This sensor ID is allocated to each air pressure sensor by a sensor maker at the stage of shipping, while in a car maker, in assembling a vehicle, a tire pressure monitoring apparatus of a vehicle body is set into an ID registration mode and the air pressure sensors are operated one by one in a predetermined order (sequence) to transmit their own sensor IDs so that the tire air pressure monitoring apparatus receives IDs transmitted therefrom in this way for registering them in its own memory. Thus, the ID registration is done in a manner such that the identification on the tire positions can be made on the basis of the order of ID registration.
However, since a vehicle undergoes the tire rotation at an interval of a predetermined traveling distance, if the contents of the ID registration are not updated, difficulty is encountered in informing a driver of the position of a tire in which the abnormality of air pressure occurs. In particular, in the case of the vehicle, since the occurrence of the air pressure abnormality in the front-wheel side exerts influence on the steering performance, from the viewpoint of the improvement of safety, the information as to whether the tire involved in air pressure abnormality belongs to the front wheel side or to the rear wheel side is required for the driver.
Accordingly, in maintenance shops or the like, after the implementation of the rotation, there is a need to again place the tire air pressure monitoring apparatus into the ID registration mode and to make the air pressure sensors transmit their own sensor IDs in the predetermined order for the ID registration. This makes the registration troublesome and can cause mistaken registration.